Families and young people will be able to access more help and advice online and through community hubs after Wiltshire Council leaders agreed a new approach.
From April 2024 a new family hub model will be in place with an accessible digital platform offering information, advice, support and self-help courses alongside 21 family hubs located in community buildings in Wiltshire. The model will provide support and advice for families with children or young people aged from 0 – 19, or up to 25 for those with Special Educational Needs and or Disabilities.
The proposals are in line with government plans for family hubs. The family hubs will be located in community buildings across the county where families will have regular access to a team of navigators, who will have a visible presence in the hubs and the wider community, so that they are accessible to as many people as possible.
The navigators will work with all customer-facing staff to ensure a consistent service is available for families at all times in the relevant community buildings, and the staff there will be trained to offer assistance and signposting to families.
They will be the central point of contact and will develop relationships in the community and with clusters of schools and early years providers in the local area.
The proposals are in line with feedback from families and young people through a recent survey, and 24 face to face consultation events across the county, when they were asked a range of questions, including how they wanted to find out information about services available in the local area to support them and their family.
A single provider will now be sought to operate the contract across Wiltshire alongside the council’s own Family Key Workers. Navigators will operate from 21 community buildings across the county including leisure centres, libraries and schools.
The family hubs will replace the support currently offered by children’s centre services who support families of children aged from 0-5 years and they will instead offer support to families of children and young people up to the age from 0-19 years. The current contracts with The RISE and Spurgeons are due to end on 31 March 2024 and will allow the delivery of Family Hubs which will allow co-ordinated support to be available in one place for more families.